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Dispatcher assists chief with roadside baby delivery

Vio and Eagle Police Chief Joey Staufer welcomed their newborn Tuesday morning on the side of the interstate in Gypsum. They received assistance from Vail dispatcher Kelly Klein.
Special to the Daily |

VAIL — At 2:07 a.m. Tuesday, Vail Public Safety Communications Center received a 911 call from a man reporting his wife was in labor. They were pulled over on the side of Interstate 70 at the Gypsum off-ramp, exit 140. The dispatcher, Kelly Klein, assisted the caller, Eagle Police Chief Joey Staufer, in delivering his first child, a healthy baby girl, who arrived before the ambulance and fire truck.

Staufer cared for the newborn until Gypsum Fire Protection District and Eagle County Paramedic Services arrived on scene. Mother and baby were transported to a local hospital, where both are doing well.

Klein has been with the Communications Center since December. Child deliveries over the phone don’t happen often, and he says he feels lucky to have helped. Klein said it was a “very rewarding experience.”



“This is why I got into emergency services, for experiences like this,” he said.

Klein will be awarded a pink stork pin and will have his name inscribed on a plaque in the Communications Center.

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